I love you more
by denoodled
Summary: Rapunzel felt like she never truly belonged to the palace. She couldn't. She belonged with Mother. [Post-movie, one-shot.]


**A/N:**_ It's the first story about Gothel and Rapunzel's relationship I've written, and it's probably also the first story I've tried to make deeper and more psychological, not only to extend some movie scenes._

* * *

_"I love you very much."_

_"I love you more."_

_"But I love you the most."_

This eternal game lasted ever since Rapunzel could remember. Mother always had the last word; when she spoke it she pressed a cool and offish kiss at her forehead. She always held her at arm's length. Sometimes she let Rapunzel get closer to her but none of them seemed to like it; Rapunzel felt like imprisoned in the iron cage of her arms. She was breathing in the heavy scent of rose perfume at her thin wrists. Mother stood there, tense like a string, only her shaking right hand ran down Rapunzel's hair; up and down, up and down, and again. Such a soothing touch. When she stopped, though, and they finally moved away from each other, they both sighed with relief.

When the Queen saw her for the first time, her eyes were wet. Two endless green oceans of tears. Rapunzel had green eyes too, she noticed that similarity looking at the mosaic when she visited the village for the first time. **(But Mother had gray eyes.)** She didn't wait for Rapunzel to embrace her, she ran to her first and closed her in a warm purple-gold hug, and Rapunzel felt like home. **(But Mother was dead.)**

"Darling," she constantly whispered to ear. '_Darling_', '_my little daughter_'. Eugene called her Blondie and didn't plan to stop. **(He did. None of the promises lasted forever. She wasn't going to leave the tower, too.)** Mother said '_flower_'. That '_darling_' seemed to be taking the remais of the past away from her. When she heard it for the first time she felt like she was standing in the center of a big hall, surrounded by a crowd, completely naked. It was them who undressed her and held her up to ridicule. They took '_flower_' away from her. They ordered everyone, including Eugene to adress her as '_princess_'. They took '_Blondie_' away from her.

"They love you," Eugene was saying. She only droped her gaze. "And I love you as well."

From the moment when he found the courage to say it for the first time, he repeated it all the time, like if he wanted her to feel better because of that. It didn't help. It felt like rubbing salt into wound.

"Oh, just don't say that!" she shouted when he opened his mouth to repeat it. She shut them up with a kiss few times - but the crazy joy she felt while kissing him after he opened his eyes in the tower just disappeared. She didn't want to treat it like an unpleasant duty. "Don't you say that!"

Brutally, she pushed away his hands and left him on the palace courtyard with himself to eat his heart out, wondering what he had done wrong. Even though the pang of guilt could consumpt her later, she was happy if she was able to let him feel at least a tiny part of what _she_ felt all the time.

Rapunzel was easy to unhinge. She was stepping at an inclined plane, balancing on the edge; from hysterical laughter to rampant sob. She kicked the valet because she asked for a bowl of her soup and he looked at her, surprised.

"But it's a peasant dish," he protested. And just then she kicked him. Mother always cooked her soup - only for special ocasions but she always went to get parsnip and hazelnuts when Rapunzel was upset or just asked her to. _She loved her the most._

They tried to tell her that she was a bad woman - that's what they said, The Woman, The Bad Woman. It was her who kidnapped Rapunzel and imprisoned her in the tower, it was her who took away her childhood. For them she was only a kidnapper, a criminal.

It was her Mother. They didn't understand that. No one did. **(Eugene didn't, too. It was him who took Mother away from her.)** Because of that she used to cover her ears when they started to talk about her.

"Stop, stop it!"

Those people didn't know her. And she didn't know them. She was afraid to know. **(Everyone she knew was Mother. And now she'd lost her. She'd lost her just to get those strange people, 'the parents'. A funny word it was; what did it mean? All she had was Mother.)**

She ran away to her bedroom. When she walked in there for the first time, clutching Eugene's hand, she panicked.

"Take me away from here, Eugene!" she sobbed into his collar, pressing against him tight, still tighter. "I don't want another tower, I can't..."

And now, paradoxically, western wing of the palace was the shelter. She came there to escape from the world and people telling her who she was. The Queen never understood. The King never even tried to. It was him who helped her then. He squeezed her hand and smiled sadly. He didn't say a word and Rapunzel was grateful because of that. He was a bit like Eugene, just more quiet and grey-haired.

She hid in a tiny nook between the edge of her bed and the window wall. She grabbed the old patched cloak and buried her face into it.

She hadn't tell anyone she had that because they would have done the same thing they did to her purple dress - they would have thrown it away. **(They said it was dirty but Rapunzel knew better. They wanted her to forget Mother.)** She didn't even tell Eugene. But she took it from under the tower, although it was incredibly hard for her. Then she lovingly took the ashes that weren't yet blown away to bury them in the palace garden later. **(It was all she had left when Mother was gone.)**

She still could smell the heavy scent of Mother's perfume, forest and parsnips, but everyday there was less of it.

"_I love you more._"

It was true; Rapunzel loved her more. She still remembered. And Mother? Mother left her. Now she had to find her place in the world she missed someday, very long ago. Alone.

**(It would be enough if Mother took her to see the Floating Lights. After that, everything would be as it should.)**

Quickly, she threw the cloak under the bed when the door creaked. She saw the Queen. She surely had a name but Rapunzel didn't even bother to know it. **(Mother was nameless too; just Mother.)**

"Maybe it would be the best if you go to sleep now, sunny," she said quietly. Rapunzel obediently climbed up to the bed, avoiding to look into her eyes. She said '_sunny_'. It wasn't '_flower_' but it wasn't '_darling_' also. She felt as if she had her golden hair again.

She wondered if Eugene had spoken to her. When she returned, she heard him asking the Queen and the King not to tell her they loved her. He didn't use those three treacherous words for quite some time - and then they were just spoken. The Queen, however, didn't listen to him.

"I love you very much, sunny," she whispered, leaning over her. Her breath was warm. Unlike Mother, she kissed every forgotten place of Rapunzel's face; her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, her lips.

"I love you more," Rapunzel replied, with a tune of hope in her voice. It disappeared just a moment later when the Queen simply smiled in response and closed the door behind her.

**(It was nothing. Mother would come in her dreams anyway. She always did.)**


End file.
